


Rest Stop

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-02
Updated: 2006-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-12 16:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda for 2x01.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest Stop

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is totally researchgrrrl and vaznetti's fault (based on posts and discussions [here](http://researchgrrrl.livejournal.com/68264.html#cutid1) and [here](http://researchgrrrl.livejournal.com/67994.html#cutid1)). Spoiler warnings for ep 2x01, based only on theory. Thank you very much to vaznetti for a sharp, quick beta, and to vaznetti and mtgat for the hand-holding.

The light seems wrong.

It's over-saturated and faded at the same time, like someone stuck a filter over the sun. He shades his eyes against the glare, wondering if he's in Kansas, except Kansas never looked this colorful or bright. Grasses, vivid green faded to gold, stretch in all directions, to the blue horizon that's just a bit too blue. The air's cool and smells damp and clean like the banks of a stream. There's water somewhere nearby, out of sight beyond the grass.

Even his clothes don't look right. The bloodstains on his jeans are gone, but the rips, tears, and frayed cuff aren't. His shirt feels familiar on his shoulders but its color is too strong, like it's brand new and...

John waves his arm in the sling. There's no pain or restriction of movement.

Oh crap.

He botched it, got the symbol wrong, stumbled over a word in the incantation, forgot a step.

Where in hell...wait.

Stop.

Because he might just be there, although this place doesn't look much like any hell he's ever imagined.

At least he assumes he's probably in hell, because he sure as shit isn't going to the other place. Even if it is the other place, something's gone horribly FUBAR, because this isn't how it's supposed to work. He's not supposed to be here, with the impossibly golden light and the wind that sighs through the tall stalks. He reaches out to touch a blade and it presses into the pad of his index finger, but doesn't penetrate the skin. It's as soft as cattails. It doesn't hurt at all.

"Sonuvabitch!" He screams, and his voice carries across the grasses like it's open prairie with the nearest rest stop fifty miles down a dusty road.

"You probably shouldn't use language like that here."

The voice is behind him, thick with amusement, and something else he reads easily because he's heard it a million times before: she's fighting with all she has not to cry. He's terrified to turn around because it's either just the empty grasses, or it's actually _her_.

He's unprepared for either possibility. John's fingers close into fists and he turns, slowly, with the motions he uses hunting. His eyes shut tight against the sun.

Cool fingers brush his chin, a palm comes to rest against his cheek. _This is not happening._ A sob hitches in his chest before he can stop it.

"John," she says, reproachful, wry, and loving all at once. "What did you do?"

He opens his eyes and Mary smiles up at him in welcome, with a touch of distress in her expression, as if she knew all along she would see him again but didn't expect it to be quite so soon. She's not wearing the white nightgown. She's in faded blue jeans and a loose peasant blouse, open at the neck to show just a bit of freckles and cleavage. A part of his brain gets it together enough to understand that maybe she's dressed the way because that's how he wants to see her.

"I'm not...I'm not supposed to be here. Mary, I screwed it up." He grabs the hand touching his face, encloses her fingers in his, a man seizing a rope in a storm. "I have to go back. I made a deal but left myself a back door so I could go back. I must have fucked it up." He averts his eyes away from her, towards the blue horizon. There are no clouds here, even though the wind is steady.

"Shhh." She steps closer him and puts her head against his shoulder, then takes his arms and wraps them around her. Mary tilts her head to look at him, her forehead wrinkling. "I don't think you're supposed to stay."

"No, I'm betting not, baby."

"Don't call me _baby_ ," she says, lips twitching, an old joke between them. Her hands trail up his back.

"If I'm here someone sure made a big-ass paperwork error, because the way I figure it, my road should have led to somewhere south of here." He tightens his hold on her, and is disappointed when she smells different. Too clean. There's no trace of shampoo, sweat, maple syrup, deodorant, or baby powder, not anymore.

"Who says there isn't more road ahead of you?"

"This isn't how it was supposed to go at all. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The boys. I wanted to protect them but I never did it right. I never got it right."

"They're alive. They're together." Her hands still on his back.

He takes her face between his palms, tracing his finger around the whorls of her ears, along her cheek bones, her nose, over her lips, trying to figure out if she's solid or an apparition. Maybe he's dreaming. Maybe it wasn't Dean in a coma, but him, and he's still asleep in a hospital bed. Maybe he dreamed it all. Maybe they're still in the Impala.

Pausing his hand, he tilts his palm towards himself. The knife cut is gone. He lets out a shaky sigh that's half-laughter.

"No, I really blew it, honey. Looks like I'm not getting back to the boys. And that bastard, the thing that killed you, it's after Sammy. But I'm dead and there's not a goddamn fucking thing I can do."

"You are going back, John." Mary nods, a quick jerk of her head, her lips forming into a thin line.

Hope, cold and faint as frost on a windshield, returns. "But how--"

"You stubborn idiot. It worked. You're going back. Not staying here for good. Think of this as a rest stop."

"A rest stop?"

"Before the difficult part begins," she says.

The tone underlying her voice makes the hair on his arms stand up.

"Surprised they even let me in at all, even with a guest pass. I don't belong here. This is a place for h--"

The rest of his words are lost as her mouth closes over his, her lips and tongue moving in a familiar way that makes his belly hot, his fingertips tingle. The need began when he first saw the freckles and cleavage, and now it's growing unendurable.

"Oh, I think I know where you belong," she says when they pause for breath.

Next she goes to work kissing along the line of his jaw, following the line of stubble down to his neck. When she shifts against him like that, he forgets to wonder how he ended up here, if or how he's going to get back, what will happen when he does. He puts his hand over her breast, feeling her nipple harden through the cotton of her shirt as she whispers his name. The sound blends with the sigh of wind through the grass.

It's only when his mouth finds hers again that he tastes salt, and realizes she's crying.

* * *

Afterwards, there's no warning.

It seems to take a long time to pull their clothes back on (although Mary's learned not to think of _time_ as a concept) because they keep touching each other, unwilling to break contact. The last time they did this outdoors, there'd been joking and giggling as they got dressed, but now they're silent.

No door opens in the air shining with light as she'd half-expected, She hasn't been there long enough to understand how it all works, though she understands enough.

Mary simply turns around to pull on her shirt and when she turns back, he's gone.

Just like that.

"John?" she asks tentatively, though she doesn't expect it to be any use. The taste of him is still on her tongue.

This place, with its perfect sky, too-golden light, whispering grass, and soul-warming sun, is hollow. Mary hugs herself against the goosebumps that form along her arms, and shivers.


End file.
